Axes and Arrows
by GoWithTheFlo20
Summary: Legend clashes against Legend. One national treasure against another. However, if anything is learned, is Folklore and Tales never really capture the essence, the truth, the reality of bygone heroes and villains. When Ragnar sails for England once more, he run's into something no one had expected. This is the tale of Robin Hood, just not the one you've heard of before... Ragnar/Oc
1. Beloved Brother

The young girl, no older than eleven, twelve at a very generous push, stood tall and straight despite her young age and the horror laid bare before her, for her eyes to eat and her soul to wail at. She had always been tall for her age, always a head and shoulder and upper torso above the other girls her mother pushed her towards, or the local farming boys who would throw mud at her.

Of course, this was well before her mother's untimely death, back when the skies were blue, the land peaceful and all was well in her small, enclosed, innocent world. Now, however... Now she felt no taller than a mouse, no stronger than a newborn kitten, as fierce as a roaring toad. How could she? How could she be that same girl she was that morning, bright eyes, rosy-cheeked and copper curled when faced with the indisputable proof that she was well and truly alone in this godforsaken world?

Her family was not the wealthiest, nor the poorest, but they got by, and if they couldn't? Well, the families of Loxley in the mighty kingdom of Northumbria stuck together, they stood as one. Her mother used to say that a lone brick hardly had any useful purpose, but together, brick by brick, if together, unified, you would have the grandest, strongest castle. That was Loxley, farmers, paupers, tailors, potters, different, poor and alone in singularity, but together, they made a home, they made warmth and goodness, they made Loxley... They were Loxley.

When one fell down on hard times, another family was there to reach a hand down and pull them tall again. A united front against the harsh winds of the tough world they lived in, that imaginary castle that stood strong on the hill, proud, despite the raiding party trying to tear it down. But that was before, before today, before her mother died of an illness that was as painful as it was swift. Before her father died in battle for a king who wrung their people dry... Before her only family she had left, her older brother, died too in a battle not of his making, but that of their fat, spoiled, selfish king. All before those terrible winds took everything from her. Before reality breached the castle and the little girl was left to the bereft and cold real world.

Her father died before she was born, still warm and round in her mother's stomach. The loss had not hurt, for to the girl, you could not miss what you never had. She pictured him sometimes, rarely, but she would picture him all the same. Imagine what he would say or do, imagine comforting embraces, in her mind, he would look just like her older brother. Strong, broad-shouldered, older but still with those sharp cheekbones and curls of sunbeam gold, a lone dimple on his right cheek that showed his mirth, just like her brother.

Her mother, well, all she had of the red-haired, lithe and smiling woman was a few hazy memories to bless herself with at night. She remembered a tune hummed to her, fuzzy and distant, but there all the same, like a heart beat out of tune. She remembered grey eyes, eyes her brother had, unlike her own green. She remembered calloused hands, hard working hands, that would rub her back so gently. She remembered cotton pressed to her cheek as her mother held her... She remembered the dark circles and the clamminess and sheen of sweat to her mother's form. She remembered the blood stained lips.

Her brother, her precious, lively, too bright of a star brother, however, was a matter all on his own. He had always been like that, and even now, faced with what she was, she thought... No, she knew he would forever be that way. With him, she remembered everything. Every lesson, every game, every laugh, every cry, every story, every hug and skinned knee. It hurt that much more, it was a searing dagger planted in her belly, turning and turning and never ending. He was all she ever had, her stone, her shooting star, her sky and sea and air. He had been her everything, her family, her home. He was her mother, her father, her brother... Her dearest and truest friend. And now he was gone, scattered in the wind on the whim of a greed filled man.

So here she stood, shaking, cold, numb, in front of her brothers already bloating body. All she could do was stand there, like her feet had grown roots splintering into the earth, pinning her there, staring at what used to be her brother, mentally begging for her eyes to turn away, to look away, to see anything but what she was seeing, but move they would not. Her brother's friend, John, a soldier in arms, had brought him back home from the battlefield in hopes and respect of burying him where he belonged, with his family, on home soil. The girl didn't know whether this was an act of mercy and love or pure spite.

Staring at her brother's face, forced to look at the blankness, the abyss, John towering over her form, inches behind her, armour still strapped on tight, the girl gravitated more to spite than any other explanation. Why else would she be faced with this? Why else would god do this? Why else would this inescapable rage be crawling up her marrow, poisoning her blood and bones with licking fire?

"He died a good death little one. Quick, honourable and with soul. No man can ask much more of god than that."

The girl trembled further, anger and sadness mixing into one torrent inside of her, swirling, angry, gnawing at her like a slobbering dog would to a lamb bone, chipping away at her resolve, clink by clink. Her eyes slammed shut, staying so, as she tried to block out the gruff voice of John, who was standing just behind her, his shadow from the candlelight casting over her and her own shadow, eating it in the inky blackness, leaving her shadowless like a wraith. Another thing taken away from her this day and, in the pit of her stomach, she was sure it would not be the last. Her voice was broken when she spoke, sharp edges of glass that could cut tingeing her tone with the rage she felt burning in her lungs, strangling her throat, imprinting red on the back of her closed eyelids.

"Is god a man John?"

She could hear John shuffle behind her, one foot, two foot, his cloak, dirty and torn from the battlefield he had ridden away from flapping slightly as his hand rested on the hilt of his broadsword. Then, all was silent once more, John likely bewildered by her question and trying to come up with an answer to quell whatever that was brewing in the air around them. John, bless his soul, was as smart as he was small... And that didn't say much in his favour. She could hear the pop of his jaw as it opened, likely due from an injury he had acquired from the war... A war that had taken her brother from her.

"I believe so..."

Sharply, as if finally back in control of her body, the young girl twirled around, hands clenched at her side, nostrils flared, teeth ground and bitten together as she forced the words passed them, barking at the taller man. She wanted to kick, scream, cry, bite, claw and tear at the man, but all she could do was shout and tremble, like a lost lamb. Shame bubbled up in her, nearly buckling her legs from underneath her. Her brother had fought to get home, he had fought for her, he had fought to get back to her and Loxley and what? In face of his death, all she could do was watch as tears built up in her eyes, ones that refused to fall and blurred her vision into coloured splodges, shake like a leaf caught in an autumn breeze and shout at his dearest friend? She was weak. Weak!

"Then maybe god should be the one to have a quick, honourable death! If that is all he is willing to give us! His own children! I hate him John! I hate him and I hate the king!"

Her fingers clenched and unclenched at her side, tears finally making trails down her cheeks, hot and burning as she stumbled slightly, the hem of her own dress snagging on the table corner... The table where her prone and lifeless brother was laid like an offering to a god that only answered in blood. John, who had to slightly hunch over to fit into their modest home due to his immense size, grimaced hard, his hand falling from his sword as he took a step towards her, hands reaching for her, grasping for her, only to falter as she backed further away from him, skirting around the table to get away, shoulders shaking with the held back sobs.

"Mar-... Little one. This... This isn't easy for anyone. You know how much he was loved around here, he will be missed as much as the sun is in the dark of the night when the town finds out. We will carry on, we have to. That is how life works."

The girl's eyes clenched shut one more time, only to blink rapidly as she opened them, fighting the tears, the anger, the sorrow that was quaking through her. John was right... Too right. Her brother would be missed horribly, terribly, irrevocably. He only got paid little for his job, a member of King Aelle's army, but what he didn't spend on him and her, he gave to the lesser families, the ones who had even less than they. Now there would be no more help. They were on their own as much as she was. Loxley was not a rich town, not decadent or filled with lords and ladies, they struggled to get by as it were, without her brother to stipend that finance and food influx, families would whither, maybe even die in the fallout of one fat king's choice.

She had lost so much already, too much for someone her age, she could not lose her home, her town too. Not while she could do something, anything about it. And so, for the first time since John had stumbled into her home, she dressed in nothing but her night shift and a fur wrap, flickering candle clasped in both hands like she was walking to mass, body draped over his barrelled arms, head bowed as he lowered the body to the unstable table, the little girl could think clearly, like the clouds in her mind had dissipated for a few blissful moments. John had said when the town found out... Which meant they did not know a thing at this very moment in time. Nothing. Nada. They were thankful ignorant of all this. She was talking before she could catch her thoughts, begging before she could even formulate a plan.

"Does the king know? does he know about Ro-... My brothers dea-... That he is gone?"

John, in all his greatness and size, blabbered like a fish out of water. Her brother was the hope in this small town, the oddity that showed that even the smallest man from the most impoverished settlement could make it big, could make it out there, could thrive. When they found out, that hope would be extinguished like a puff of air to a candle's wick and darkness would fall. Life without hope was no life at all... Her brother had told her that, right before he left for battle. It was the last thing he had said to her, the last thing he would ever say to her.

"The loss of men in the battle with Wessex was a large one, I highly doubt that the king would take any note of one man's death, no matter the merit of said man-"

"Good."

John floundered once more, almost comically if the circumstances were not so dire. But the girl was in movement, pacing the length of the table, eyes determinedly staying far away from the body upon it. The candlelight flickered in her green eyes, furthering her red hair to look like a crown of flames that trailed down her back like a veil, her voice and frantic eyes taking on the feverish delirium of madness.

"Don't you see John? This could be it for Loxley, for all of us. So, we don't inform the king or the town. We say nothing. Ro-... My brother, we'll bury him in the woods. We say nothing. The king will carry on his payments to my brother for his service, and we'll... We'll just say he is on a family errand for a month or two..."

This time, it was John's turn to cut off the girl, his voice full of disbelief. It did not halt her pacing nor her frantic mind. She half feared her mind would never slow again, never once know that calm it once had. Was this the life she was destined for?

"This is madness. Complete madness. They will find out when he doesn't come back, then what? They will still starve, you're only postponing the inevitable. No. We tell them now, and maybe the king will grant us a sum to carry us through the winter-"

The sound of the large water pot smashing into the wall of the girl's house was ear splitting, the fragments of the pottery flailing around, falling to the ground in a great heap. She hadn't meant to do it, but the anger, that blistering heat had scorched her and before she could reconcile her body with her mind, her hand had already picked up the pot and threw it at the wall, a cry of anger following it as her unsettling eyes focused in on the larger man.

"The king? That is your answer? The fat bastard who cares not for anyone but his treasury? He would sooner burn this city down then send a single gold coin! You know this as much as I do! No! We lie for a while. And then... Then I will steal if I have to, to keep this place alive! He has taken everything from me John! Everything! my brother... He's dead. He died alone in a war not his own...I should have... John... He's dead and I-..."

The walls finally fell, the emotions cascading over them as if a giant tsunami had breached the cracks and obliterated it, and finally... Finally, the girl cried, sobbed, falling into the dusty floor in a flurry of skirts and racking shoulders, one hand reaching up from her crumpled form near the table to grasp and wring at her dead brother's cloak. Between the sobs, she spoke, using the nickname for the man her brother had bequeathed him with, using the only thing she thought might get him to see it her way.

"This town meant everything to Robin. Everything. If I can't have my brother, if god has taken him away, then I shall not let him take what my brother fought so hard for... Little John... Please..."

The man broke, tears in his own large brown eyes as he stumbled over to the girl, crashed to the floor beside her and scooped her into his massive arms, trying to stem the sobbing and fight his own torn and weeping emotions from loss.

"Fine. We lie. The king should be bought for three months... Four at a push. After that, God in all his wisdom is the only one I believe to know what will happen. Stop crying now little one, come on, get up. You're coming with me."

His embrace was too strong, his hands too large, his hand stroking her back moving too fast. Nothing like what Robin's hugs were like...

"Coming with you? I can't leave Loxley-"

"You can and you will. The king may be convinced with this lie, but others knew Robin. They know... Knew of his little sister he never stopped speaking about. They will never believe he left you alone in Loxley, unguarded. So, he has warded you with me until he comes back. That is what we will tell them. Hurry, we do not have much time, word will spread about my appearance and people will come to see if Robin has returned."

The girl wasted no more time, dashing about the house to collect only her keepsakes and those she would need to carry on with, some spare clothes and a satchel of food, just some goats cheese and half stale bread. The tear tracks on her face were sticky, drying on the apples and swoop of her jaw, but she could not bring herself to wipe them away. They felt right there as if her body could finally show what turmoil she felt inside. Her outside finally reflecting her insides.

A warm hand on her shoulder pulled her back down to earth, making her jerkily swivel her head and crane it upwards to stare at John. Her eyes only flickered down to his free hand when the candlelight flickered against something long, wooden and polished with the attentiveness and care of a well-loved item. Her bow.

"Here, Robin told me about his lessons with you, no point in that stopping. God knows Robin was an awful archer, no, only built for swords that one. We'll make a marksman out of you yet."

Shakily, the girl reached out for it and grasped the string, tugging it free from John's hold. Her thumb slowly but lovingly ran over the wood, before she ducked into it and strapped the bow across her back, the string tapering at her front, holding the bow in place. Even then, her fingers never quite came away from the bow. Robin had made it for her, years ago, when he first started to go on the king's conquests. He had taught her to use it, despite his ineptness at the weapon himself, so she could go hunt if the need called for such an activity, so she would never go hungry or completely unprotected.

"Thank you John. For... Everything."

"Don't thank me yet. We have an uphill battle to fight still and many to convince. Now go, there's a cart just outside, wait for me. I'll hide... I'll bury Robin."

The girl gave a sharp nod, her neck twinging in protest against the rough treatment, but she scuttled towards the door anyhow, tugging her satchel against the floor as she shouldered the wooden door open, readying to step into the bleak night. Only, just as she was about to fade into the darkness, John's voice stalled her, freezing her halfway between night and day, moon and candlelight, sorrow and new beginning. Between life and death.

"What was that nickname Robin used to call you? Began with an M didn't it? I can never remember..."

The question brought up an old memory, and subsequently a smile too, one she hadn't thought of in years. Robin, tousled hair like a golden crown, breeches dirty from the forest floor, dimpled smile shining in the light as he asked for her hanky for good look, twig, which in her childish mind had been a broadsword, held up to the heaven. The days of summer games and childhood dreams... Gone, just as Robin was. Her voice croaked as she answered.

"Maid... Robin used to call me Maid Marian when we used to play knights and princess's."

Marian wanted for no answer, did not stay long enough to see the same melancholy smile on John's face that mirrored her own, as she slipped into the night and into a life she had no idea she had created for herself. That one choice, at such a tender age, that one lie, that one huddled sorrow filled moment in a small house birthed a legend time would not forget, but over time had misconstrued and shaded in the wrong colours.

The legend of Robin Hood, just not as anyone knew it to be anymore.

* * *

 **So, yes no? Should I continue or are you thinking what the hell did I just read?**

So, here is chapter one of this weird story that has taken form in my mind. I'm not sure whether I should continue or not, but I do have the basic's laid down and anyone who has come here from my Black Sail's fic, well, this is what you asked for and I hope you are happy with what I've come up with.

The basic's is this is, very, very, very (Can't state that enough) loosely based on the legend of Robin hood, but as you've already read, my own very twisted and odd version of it... That includes Vikings and a dead Robin XD. As for pairings, I am in a bit of a muddle with it. From what my other readers said, I've whittled it down to three options, although of course, Ragnar/Oc is the most popular at the moment.

Ragnar/Oc

Athelstan/Oc

Floki/Oc

So, if you do want this to continue, as mad as it is, and you would prefer one pairing over the other, please drop it in a review or P.M.

Obviously, this is going to have the whole cast of the Vikings involved (Alsaug is still debatable) and these are the characters from the Robin hood legend that will be making an appearance if it continues. Little John, Marian, Guy of Gisborne, Friar Tuck, Sheriff of Nottingham (Though not Sheriff per-say), Alan-a-Dale and Will Scarlet.

For those who read **Metamorphosis,** do not worry, I know it's been a while since I've updated, but it is coming. Life got in the way and it's been a hard chapter to iron out, some bits I like, others I don't but I can't keep the bits I do like without the bits I don't if that makes sense, so trying to find a way around that has been hell. Pure hell. But it's nearly finished now and should be out within a weak, the same with the promised Rackham/Oc fic (Which will likely be out sooner than the next chapter of Metamorphosis.)

To my new and old readers, I hoped you enjoyed it and please don't forget to drop a review, they leave me all warm and fuzzy inside.

Until next time- GoWithTheFlo20


	2. Bear Skin

_Marian: 12 years and three months old._

Marian sat at the base of a large oak tree, huddled underneath its protective branches, knees drawn up close and pressed to her chest, arms loosely wrapped around her knees, staring resolutely ahead at the item propped up against the tree opposite her, laying there innocently, innocuously, focused on the little carving of a robin on it's curving arm. She didn't know how long she had been there, sitting underneath the oak tree, as if its fallen foliage could somehow protect her, camouflage her from the outside world, somehow bring her the peace she so readily needed but could never find. The frigid frost dusting the forest floor had gotten thicker as night began to fall, but she doubted time mattered any more, not to her or her rambling mind.

Mayhaps, if she stayed as still as she could, the frost would eat away at her too, swallow her, make her a part of the forest she so dearly loved and away from the burdens of the real world. She often found herself spending days upon days in Loxley's forest, climbing tree's and sleeping in their rough but sweet embrace, high above the unmoving and unforgiving ground, scavenging, hunting, learning to fight under little John's tutelage, rather than actually in Loxley, where she was meant to be… Where Robin would want her to be.

Marian cringed, her freckled nose crinkling in distaste or pain, perhaps a dash of both, still feeling the stinging flare of the ache of the bruise blossoming on the bottom half of her jaw. This morning, she had not ducked in time and gotten clocked by little Johns thick fist for her mindlessness. Of course, that was the last thing she remembered of their spar that day, a worrying revelation that was as just as concerning to little John himself. Although he said nothing, she could still see the worry in his eyes that never really made contact with her own. Rage, when fighting, was meant to give you the drive to carry on, the determination, it wasn't meant to snatch your own mind away from you, leaving you nothing but a husk of fury that kept on swinging no matter how many blows you took. The only reason she had snapped out of it, coming back to herself like someone had drop-kicked her soul back into her body, she was sure, was little John's gasping shouting of Robin's name.

It had all been John's idea, funnily enough, to teach the little, wraith-like Marian to give, and subsequently, be able to take a punch. When he had first dragged her into the forest on the cusp of twilight, telling her to dodge as he swung, no other warning granted, she had questioned what he was doing as she jumped, ducked, rolled and tried to evade the lumbering, punching and kicking form of little John, as well as question his bloody sanity. All she got for her incessant questioning was a gruff _'it's for your own good'_ and her favourite _'I can't be around all day and every night, better you be able to protect yourself than lean on someone else to do it for her.'_ Fortunately for both, that last one she had agreed with and so, the sparring lessons had begun.

At first she had hated it, loathed it. Not the fighting, never the fighting, the fighting for those blissful moments they lasted helped ease her mind, drum her world down to the simplest of questions. Fight or get hit? No, she hated it because of the reasoning it came from. She knew the real reason little John had been teaching her to fight, even if he would not admit it, even on his death bed she feared. The reason was simple, her hatred for it was anything but. He had promised Robin to look after her.

Still, bitterness twisted and gnawed on her gut like a hundred angry little mice, even if it was nice to have someone out there looking out for you, wanting nothing in return for that favour. Little John wouldn't have to teach her, protect her, live with his promise if her brother had not gone and died on her. Little John was here because Robin wasn't, and as convoluted and silly as it sounded, she, a little, minuscule part of her hated little John for it. Some childish, daydreaming, illogical part of her whispered to her that if little John went away, Robin would come back. But that was an impossibility. Robin was dead and he would forever stay dead, no matter what she prayed, did or thought. Robin was dead. If she kept telling herself that, perhaps one day she would believe it.

She knew it was petty, her anger misplaced, to push the blame on a dead man and the only person looking out for her, but that didn't stop her from doing so, especially in the middle of the night, when the silence of the house, no snores from Robin or his pottering steps to keep the silence at bay, licked and sizzled at her blood. That was when she felt truly and wholly alone. King Aelle wasn't here. The man who had killed Robin wasn't here. Little John was here. However, Marian was haunted by Robin's ghost, his memory, the agonizing loss of him and so, it would have to bare her ill-placed anger, otherwise, she was terrified the emotion would eat her whole, chew and chew until she was nothing but a mush of jellied bone, torn muscle and weeping wounds. Maybe that was why she blacked out sometimes, when the rage took over her like she was nothing but a mere puppet, a conduit for it, because that was one of the only things Robin had left her, the absolute anger.

Robin had been gone for around four full moons now. The king and his men were growing anxious for answers and yet, she and little John remand adamant and steadfast in their bare-faced lies. Robin was alive, he just had not returned yet. It was easy to tell that lie, too easy, especially when, even after seeing Robin's lifeless corpse, she still felt that way. By god almighty did she feel that way. Each morning, she found herself looking towards his bedroom door, breakfast cooling at the table, waiting for him to come out with his hair a mess and sleep crusting on his eyelashes, only to come to and face the brutal reality in a slam of clarity that shook her being at their very foundation. He would never leave that bedroom again, never greet her with a snarky comment or a hair ruffle, never to sit with her and eat breakfast.

Nevertheless, with each passing week, trying to gain the money rightly owed to her from the king, for Robin's unwavering servitude under him, was getting harder and harder and all too soon she was afraid it would stop altogether. It was not only her that relied on this money, as measly of a sum as it was, but so did the inhabitants of Loxley. Just last week, with the winter being as harsh and its complete lack of all mercy, as it was, they had run out of grain just one month into winter and she had to spend the last of her money to ride to the next village, a grueling three-day hike on horseback one way, to buy said grain to get them through this hellish season intact and whole.

The elders of Loxley were frail and weak, the young too small and thin, the men narrow, bony towers that a good wind could knock over and the women gaunt and sallow, wrinkles and grey hair decorating people too young to be painted in such grim colours. It didn't sit right with Marian, it hurt to see her people so downtrodden, so hungry, so beaten down by the world that a supposed god had gifted them. Well, fuck the world, fuck starvation and fuck god too while she was at it. If they would do nothing, she would. So she did what she had to. She lied to the king's men, she spent her money on things Loxley needed and she hunted and scavenged for herself and each day, that rage grew, fed by the circumstances she had no control over.

After being awarded ward-ship over her, little John had stayed with her in Robin's… No, she supposed it was hers now, her house to look after her. However, after the first month he had been called back to duty on the words of a scruffy messenger boy bearing the king's seal who came knocking in the middle of the night, like some demon come to steal another loved one from her. That was how she felt, demons were everywhere, only they weren't inhumane, animistic devils the churchmen spoke of, but people, real with flesh and blood and thoughts and even more dangerous than what the bible spoke of.

Little John had left that following day, leaving her alone in a shell of a happy home, now nothing more than a house made of cold, taunting brick and thatch, no longer a home. Robin's death had taught her that life lesson at least, the difference between a house and home. Little John visited as often as he could, and when he did, Marian tried to ease all his worries with pleasant smiles and rebuffs, but both knew they were as empty as could be. Marian was not alright, she was not okay, she was alone and as grievous as she was to admit it, she was scared, terrified of what was to come once the money stopped, for herself and for the people of Loxley. She couldn't and wouldn't sit by and watch them die and starve. She couldn't. She wouldn't.

Mayhaps that is why he took her to the woods to fight in the first place, something to ease her anger and emptiness, something other than Robin's bereavement to focus on. It had worked, partially, it took away time to think and stew over Robin's death, but it also gave little crumbs and titbit's to that anger little John had wanted squished out of her. In short, Marian felt like little John was feeding the caged wolf, helping it to grow stronger each lesson. She only prayed he, or maybe more importantly, she was dead before it could break its cage.

Little John had only been back a week before another messenger boy came, this time, however, he had taken her to the woods for one last lesson, the lesson that had left her reeling and hiding under the oak tree. This one had been different somehow, some unnameable look and feel to little John and his actions that pulled on Marian's heart. Most surprisingly, Marian had actually been able to land a hit, a solid one unlike her other skimming of knuckles and near misses, clocking little John in his broad nose. Marian had apologized profusely, especially when the blood began to trickle down his beard, but he had brushed it all off with a hearty laugh and carried on. That was when he had hit her jaw and she had blacked out, only to come to with her hands around his neck, both tangled up on the forest floor, squeezing with all her might, snarling like some wild beast as little John batted at her hands, rasping something about Robin.

Marian had let go, of course, and with disjointed breath and shaking limbs, stood and staggered away, shocked and stunned by what had happened… What she had done. Little John wouldn't meet her eyes, wouldn't really look at her, but he glazed over what had happened, pretending it hadn't, the same course of action she had been doing with Robin's death, clambered up, dusted himself off and clapped her on the back with a boisterous _'well done Marley!"_. Finally, he had to leave but before he did, out of his pack, he pulled out the item she was currently staring at and placed it against the tree next to him, one last parting shot thrown over his shoulder as he bumbled back to Loxley and then back off to the king's army to fight another war that was not his own.

"Perhaps it's time for you to pick your bow back up. He didn't mean to leave you behind Marian, he really didn't. Robin may be gone but Loxley is still here and they need you… They need you badly."

And so, once little John had disappeared from view, Marian had broken down, crying and shouting, kicking and punching the trees in her little sanctuary of Loxley forest, lashing out in anger at anything that stood in her path. It was the first time someone had brought Robin up to her. She couldn't stay angry, not at Robin, he had not planned on dying and even in life, she could never stay angry at him. Little John was the least person to deserve her anger too. It was time she let that rage go, or at least, aim it at something deserving of that bottomless fury… Like the king's men and King Aelle himself. Tear tracks long dry and sticky on her face, eyes no longer puffy and red, Marian scowled as she stood, strolled over to Robin's Bow, plucked it up with sure hands and marched back to Loxley. Robin's ghost did not need her, he was at peace. However, the people of Loxley did and she would not fail them like she had Robin.

* * *

 _Marian: Thirteen years and two months old._

 _Crackle, crunch, snap._ Marian stilled all movement, freezing in place, muscles locked and tense, breathe even but muted through the long wrap of green fabric she had enclosed around her neck and bottom half of her face, keeping the chill at bay, wild abundance of vivid red curls kept out of the way by a string of cotton. Her thumb curled around the string of her bow, the arrow knocked and ready for the final pull and whistling journey through the foggy air. Marian's target, a healthy, meaty stag feet in front of her, grazing, unaware of her crouched figure in the bush by an evergreen, the noise of her stepping on a twig and some leaves completely overlooked, stayed exactly where she wanted it to.

Winter had hit once again, seemingly more brutal each passing year and Marian had been left to go hunting for the last animals that travelled through Loxley's barren forest. Being in the thick of winter, the precipice, it was tremendously difficult to even pass by a squirrel, let alone a grazing stag. However, given the dire circumstances, Marian was not one to look at her surprise fortune and scoff in its face.

If the savage and cruel winters that kept battering Loxley full force did not send the villagers, herself included, to an early grave, the great fat king would. Loxley was starving once more, they had just enough food and supplies stored from summer to get them through to spring when the kings men had arrived in full force, dishing out shoves, punches and slashing swords to any who stood in their way, barging into their barns, houses and farms and took nearly everything but the cows and a few old goats. Even the sheep had been taken.

Normally, this would be worrying but not completely life threatening. Surrounding villages would normally pull together and trade or share together to pull through. However, King Aelle had cut those trades off completely too, snatching all rations and resources for his bloody army that never stopped battling. The Northumbrian army was like a great, albino leach, a ghostly phantom with rows of sharp teeth, sucking Northumbria and it's country folk dry of everything that would give them life.

Marian had tried to do the best she could, Little John too with the small amount of money he had left over from the last battle he had fought in, but she was one person, a youngling at that who may have been a good hunter, but one could not hunt when the forests were stripped bare and naked by mother nature herself. Waking up in the morning, now completely bypassing Robin's door, no longer expecting him to appear, Marian saw the faces of the villagers, thinner and thinner each sunrise, dark bags hanging from sore and drooping eyes, bones becoming prominent and so she would travel into the woods, hunt and scavenge what she could, mostly squirrels, mayhaps a slumbering badger if she was lucky, scavenged some mushrooms or edible moss and came back to Loxley, cooking a watery, thin broth she would hand out to as many people as she could once finished. It wasn't much, it was no stew or nice, filling root vegetables, but it was something to fill the stomachs of her people.

Marian breathed in deeply through her nose, her bow raised inch by inch, slowly, cautiously, praying not to alert the stag to her presence. If she killed the stag and dragged it home, it could fill the villagers and herself fully. Real meat, not the stringy slithers of squirrel meat, to give them energy, to give fat to their faces and just maybe they would be able to sleep peacefully tonight. Her fingers slipped into the right position on instinct, her breath puffing out her chest, creating a small cloud of smoke that danced upwards in curls and spirals, as the draw string of her bow began to pull back, and just as she was about to send her arrow flying into the wide eye of the stag, a noise thundered out from behind her. The stag jerked up, looking in her direction for a split second before it took off in bounds and leaps she had no hope of keeping up with.

 _Grrrrrrrrrrr._

Marian went rigid, her heart frantically beating in her ribcage, her arrow still knocked on her bow, her breath stalling as the sound rang out behind her, too close for any comfort, a sound she knew, had heard before but had never come face to face with the animal. She heard it's thudding steps, each one louder than the previous and the huffing noise of its sniffing before the trembling growl split the air in two again. _Shit._ What the hell was a bear doing awake and out during the stranglehold of winter? Marian didn't know, but she did know if she didn't do something soon, no matter what that something was, she would be dead very, very quickly and it would not be a pleasant death.

On the mental count of three, Marian swerved around and shot her arrow, not looking at the great, brown bear, missing how her arrow lodge itself home in its shoulder, before she took off running to a near by tree, scrambling up its knots and little branches, a few breaking underfoot, leaving her clawing and clinging to the tree, trying to get off the ground and away from the bear currently blundering and tearing after her in slobbery mess and terrifying growls. It looked like she wasn't the only hunter in the forest that had been tracking the stag, and unfortunately for her, the other hunter was bigger, stronger and more vicious than she could ever hope to be. She managed to get halfway up the tree before a paw the size of her chest swooped at her, shiny, onyx claws embedding into the soft flesh of her calf, tearing and ripping her flesh and muscle, flinging her off the tree and to the ground in one fell swoop.

Pain seized her being, over-riding the torrential fear that had previously taken root deep within her and worst of all, on her harsh fall, she had landed on her bow, the distinct sound of the polished and well loved wood snapping breaking something inside of her, something deep, profound, a barrier that held back all the pent up rage she had buried within herself since Robin's death. The rage that only came out when sparring with little John. Her bow, the one Robin had made for her, the last thing she had left from her brother, apart from the fury, lay broken and splintered underneath her. The bear reared up, paw arching wide, going in for the killing blow and she got angry.

 _She became incensed._

Marian had always been known for her temper, but this, this was something different, something deeper… Something worse and under the tidal wave of anger that crashed through her entire being, Marian blacked out once more. Once she came too, she was crouched over the prone form of the bear, the spare dagger she kept in her boot clasped tightly in her hand, her arm raising and stabbing repeatedly into the bears already mangled neck, one of its eyes already a mess of ribboned fur and muscle, even as she came back to herself. Her skin felt tight, sticky, the taste of poignant copper and dirt crusting on her tongue. Her clothes were smothered in blood and smears of dirt, her shirt and breeches in tatters, her wild hair undone, but the bear was dead and she was alive.

It had taken Marian a long while to calm down, having collapsed near the bears carcass, staring, blinking rapidly at her blood coated hands, tufts of bear fur glued to her skin from the blood. If… If little John had not snapped her out of it with Robin's name, could she have done the same to him? She felt sick, violently sick at the unwanted thought. _No._ No, she couldn't possibly of done that to little John. She would never. She wasn't a monster! It was the rage that made her do these things, not her. The bear was an animal, little John was her closest friend, she wouldn't have… Then why did she feel like she was lying to herself once more? Marian curled up and wrenched, vomited beside herself and the bear. Still, the sick feeling never left.

It took even longer to quell the panic that jarred through her when she had realized she had blacked out in unadulterated rage again, but when she had, she got to work. There was no point in hovering over what ifs. She had not done that to little John, she had snapped out of it in time, but she had to the bear and If that stag could have fed her village for a day, this bear could feed it for a week. Positives. If she focused on the positives, the negatives didn't seem so ominous or dark. Night had fallen briskly by the time Marian had dragged the bear far enough to Loxley to get help in bringing it into the village, her leg slowing her journey, bleeding and beyond sore, limping, the sheer size of the bear just too much to move by herself, having spent most of the time simply rolling the furry mass down the rocky hill of the forest she had climbed to get to the stag.

But as the bear was carried back through the village by the men who had come to help her when she had asked, as the people saw the promise of food and cheered, as Marian lumbered, injured and sore to a worried little John with Robin's broken bow strapped to her back, him promising to fix it for her, Marian, despite her own anger that had scared her so, smiled and felt joyful. They had food now... At least for the next few days. That was what mattered, wasn't it? It was why she had set out into the forest in the first place. She was alive and they had food. That was what she would focus on, all she would focus on, she didn't want to think of the anger that kept washing over her, taking over.

The next full moon, as a gift and a get well soon offer due to her injured leg, for all she had done and kept on doing for the people of Loxley without so much as asking anything in return, one family used the hide of the bear she had valiantly slayed, well, that was what the towns people told her she had done, to make a hooded cloak for Marian, a thick cloak of decadent fur that promised to banish all cold for the one to wear it. A reminder for her that she had fought and survived. That she had fed Loxley when no one else had. A reminder that even though there was very little to go around, the villagers of Loxley pulled together when it mattered. A treasure she had greatly appreciated, not just for the fur but for what it meant.

 _A thank you._

If only Marian could, at that point in time, at that cross-road in her life, understand the consequences of her adorning that hood… Nevertheless she did not, and adorn it she did and the consequences of such a small action would come. Oh, it would come indeed.

* * *

 _Marian: Fourteen years and six months old._

Marian strolled down the well warn path towards Brambly's farm, an empty bucket idly swinging at her side at the bounce of her steps, nodding and smiling to those who crossed her path friendly, an action they returned without hesitation. For once, instead of a haggard shirt and dirt and grass stained breeches she normally wore, despite all the odd glances she got from outsiders of Loxley who had come to trade, summer being the season of the merchants after all, the locals now long since used to Marian's lack of propriety and sense of appropriateness, Marian was dressed in one of the few gowns she had, a dress from her mother she was finally able to fit into. It was nothing special, Cotton, emerald green that clashed with the fire of her hair.

The year had been a good one indeed. Little John had not been called to war for six moon cycles now, there were no more bears or black-outs and Marian herself had gone through a growth spurt seemingly over night, a fact that little John had grumbled about and swore quietly as he shook his head and growled at boys who wandered too close to her as they made their way through the village doing odd tasks here and there. Why he did so, Marian had no idea. Boys weren't interested in her, they never had been. She was always too tall, too rough around the edges, too boisterous, more likely to hit someone than to kiss them. Boys, well, the ones she had encountered, didn't want that. They wanted delicate, bird-boned women, quiet and soft, ones that touched them gently and spoke nice words, not ones that put you into a headlock and swore at you for throwing mud at them.

It was summer, the sky was blue and there had been no trouble for over a year now. Marian should have known it wouldn't last long. Nevertheless, as she made her way to old man Brambly's farm to ask for some milk for this morns supper, her world was once again a bright place, tranquil, not a single cloud in the periwinkle sky. However, like all good things, all things it general actually, that little shining slice of peace Marian had found had an end and that end was that very day. It was when she rounded the last curving corner, just a few feet from the farm, that she heard the cry of pain and the obnoxious laughter.

From her view point, just on the other side of the wooden fence that kept Brambly's cows and goats inside, she could see Brambly cowering on the floor, a thin, wiry man whose beard was as long and thick as he. Another man stood towering over him, leg swung back in the act of kicking, vicious smile on his face, the boiled leathers and chain-mailed armour told her all she needed to know. He was one of the king's men. Just as he kicked, eliciting an humph and broken cry from Brambly, Marian dropped her bucket, the bucket rolling down and away from her feet, stopping when it bumped into a protruding rock, morning milk long forgotten as she rushed over, hopping over the fence in a leaping jump, shouting as she dashed over to the two men.

"Get away from him!"

The king's man had barley enough time to look in her direction before she barrelled into him, knocking the man over, just managing to keep her own balance and dignity in tact with a few stumbled steps. The kings man crashed to the floor in a flurry of tangled limbs, spittle flying from his mouth as he struggled to get back up. Marian skidded to a stop in front of Brambly's huddled form, joints locking, placing herself between him and the threat. When the king's man did eventually come to a stand, heavy scowl puckering at his equally heavy brows, blackened teeth on show from his snarled words, Marian braced for the worse.

"Do you know who I am?!"

Marian rose her nose up slightly, her eyes locked onto the murky depths of the man in front of her pointedly. He did and would not intimidate her.

"I don't care who you are, you're hurting him!"

And the king's man really had. Shooting a glance at old man Brambly before securing it back on the rat-faced man in front of her, Marian had seen the blood and bruises marring Brambly's form. God knows how long Brambly had been taken a beating for, but now she was here it would stop. She had seen the product of the beatings before, just a few bruises here and there, nothing ever more to boil her blood or get her questioning, bruises and marks the villagers would explain away from accidents to drunken brawls, but she had never played witness before either. Now she had played witness, seen with her own eyes the injustice and brutality of it all, the truth of what was taking place in her own village, Brambly, a man who would not hurt a spider, being beaten and kicked like some rabid dog, she wasn't willing to stand by and watch it happen, no matter what they might do to her.

"King's orders girl. You can't meet the quota, you pay either way."

Marian scoffed at the man, distracting him from the hand that slithered to her back, digging into her belt, having left her bow back home naively thinking she would not need it that day, fingers wrapping around the small dagger she kept there. One wrong move, she swore it, this man made one more wrong choice and it would be his last choice all together.

"With blood? Who will farm the bloody king's lands then, huh?"

Marian felt a tugging on her skirt, momentarily garnering her gaze from the king's man. Brambly was huddled at her feet, hand wrapped in the hem of her long skirt, one eye wide and pleading, the other swollen shut, his nose grotesquely skewed on his wrinkled face. Marian choked back a sob at the sight, it broke her heart. Robin, if he was here would protect Brambly, he would protect them all, the king's men wouldn't be doing this at all if Robin had been here… But he wasn't. And even if Marian was late in acting, she was acting now. That had to count for something, surely? She would protect Brambly, she would protect them all. It's what Robin would do, what he would want her to do.

"Lass, it's okay-"

"No! It's not! If he has nothing to give you it's because we have nothing! Have a look around you, do you see us hiding anything? There is nothing more here to take! Get away from him and leave."

The kings man had evidently had enough as he stalked forward, hands held out as if to push her over and get to Brambly. Over her dead body would he lay another hand on this man. She swore it!

"Get out of my way you simple girl."

The fool of a man took one more step forward and Marian reacted, pulling her dagger free at the same time as snatching up the front of the kings man shirt. She yanked him forward, his face close to hers as she pressed the sharp edge of the blade deep into his neck, right over his jugular.

"I told you to leave. Leave now and keep your throat in one piece or take one more step forward and you shall see what a simple girl can do when pushed."

The kings man swallowed, looked deep into her eyes, clearly seeing the truth behind her threat and nodded. Marian pushed him away and with more satisfaction than she should have, watched as he practically ran away with his tail between his legs. Only once he was gone, out of sight and sound, did Marian dare move, crumbling to her knees beside Brambly, her skirts getting covered in muck and dirt, not that she cared at that moment. She tried to hoist him up as gently as she could, but even as she did so, one arm wrapped around bony shoulder, the other holding wrinkled but warm, mole-marked hand, he groaned deeply.

"Is there really no milk Brambly?"

Brambly looked at her with his one good eye before looking back at the ground, now sitting, his face screaming of shame, refusing to meet her eye. _Shame._ Brambly felt shame for something he could not control… Marian's heart gave another aching lurch in her chest, the sick feeling in her gut bubbling up her throat. Brambly had nothing to be ashamed of, the king and the king's men did, not Brambly.

"No, the cows and goats really have gone dry."

Marian bit her lip and looked skyward, wandering if Robin was up there and if he had any advice… If he was proud of what she had done today. She hoped so, because right now, she felt anything but proud. She was angry, livid. She was scared of the future. She felt the hurt for Brambly and all the others that had faced this. But most of all, she wanted to get even. Marian mumbled calmly, despite the whirlwind she felt raging inside her, to Brambly, rubbing smooth circles on his back.

"Don't worry, I'll… I'll go to the other village and buy some. Everything will be fine."

But it wasn't and it wouldn't be, not as long as the king and the king's men thought they could do as they wished.

* * *

 _Marian:Fifteen years and ten months old._

Marian wrung the clothe out and dipped it back into the bowl, soaking up the mixture of water, garlic, white willow, yarrow and peppermint before gently wiping the child's sweaty and flustered forehead, the mixture she had been studiously giving the sick men, woman and children she currently had fitfully sleeping on the floor of her house. First King Aelle and his endless demands for food and supplies the people of Loxley could not hope to meet, the troops having taken the last of their food and were, no doubt, on Widow's road right then, about to set off. Now the villagers were too malnourished and tired from the constant work to fight off a sickness that was sweeping through Loxley unlike anything she, or the elders, had ever seen before. They were all dying around her and there was nothing she could do but play nurse maid.

Marian was good at fighting, little John could attest to that fact after she had nearly broken his arm in their last spar in a fit of blind rage, their lessons now taking a turn for trying to teach Marian how to control her seemingly uncontrollable anger when fighting, something that even scared little John when it came about. Marian was brilliant at hunting, her countless kills and stews she cooked for everyone shouted of that fact. Marian was excellent at arguing until she was blue in the face, ask the merchants down in the village just passed the river if they ever won an argument or bargaining with her, they would tell you the same, no. However, with illness, you couldn't physically fight it off the poor sufferers, you couldn't hunt and kill it, you couldn't argue or bargain with it and that left Marian with the foul taste of failure clogging her throat when faced with what she was faced with, the growing number of very sick, ashen faced friends and villagers piling into her house, or other houses that had begun offering a warm hearth and a place to rest. She felt useless… There was nothing she could do.

The child she was at present attending to fell to a racking fit of coughing, the sound moist, chunky and painful and Marian was hit with that putrid taste of incompetence again. Once the coughing finished, Marian did the only thing she could, bend down, place a soft, nimble kiss to the child's glistening forehead and tuck her into the make-shift bed-roll the four-year-old slumbered on. Marian stood up and began to pace in the dim light of twilight. They needed meadowsweet to break the fever… Only the kings men had taken their store of dried meadowsweet along with the food they had taken. Marian couldn't go out and gather more as the plant only bloomed in late summer and it was the end of autumn now, nearly winter, she wouldn't find any in the meadow even if she tried her hardest.

Marian began to pace back and forth, quiet and cautious of waking the people sleeping on her floor and her own bed, trying her best to think of a solution, but nothing came. That was when a glimmer of wood by her front door, reflecting in the candlelight caught her gaze. Robin's bow… No. Her bow. It had taken her months to fix it after it broke during her fall in the fight with the bear, yet, with splinters and cuts on her fingers, finish it she did. If Robin was here, she knew what he would do, and just how Robin's bow was no longer his bow any more but hers, she knew what she would do.

Robin would fight and so would she. Dashing over to her chest, pausing at the entry way to shuffle her boots on, Marian ruffled around in its depths before pulling out her bear fur cloak, swooping the cloak on with a swing of her arms, the green scarf she promptly wrapped around her neck and bottom half of her face and finally, she flicked her hood up and over her hair partially controlled into a long braid, hiding the distinctive colour from view. The troop of the king's men had not left with the rations yet, there was still time to get the food and meadowsweet they so needed.

In that small house, surrounded by the sick and dying, Marian made a choice that would forever divert the course of her life. Standing tall once more, she marched over to her bow, plucked it up along with a quiver of arrows she stashed next to it, slung them over her back and left through the door with one long, hard look at the people behind her, the door closing with a hushed thud and click. She knew the road the king's men would take, the Widow's road, and she would cut them off, after all, she knew Loxley's forest like the back of her hand. _She was Loxley's forest._

King Aelle had taken and not given back for far too long… It was time they had something in return, even if she had to kill for it. The people of Loxley were counting on her and she would not let that faith go unanswered.

* * *

 _Marian: Fifteen years and ten months old_

Aiken had done this job of transporting goods to and mainly from Loxley many times. Nothing changed, nothing came up and nothing ever happened on the long journey by cart back to heartland Northumbria. It was almost routine now, nearly ingrained in his blood with how predictable it all was. So at ease with the transaction by now, Aiken didn't even bother to climb down from his horse and keep watch over the men who loaded up the large cart behind him, nor did he bother with counting the barrels or contents. If there was a problem, King Aelle would send more men to fix it, he was simply the rider, nothing more and nothing less.

Growing restless, perched on top of his stallion, reigns loosely wrapped in his fingers, Aiken growled underneath his breath, re-shuffling on his horse to get comfortable. The longer the men took, the more his thighs chaffed and the more his thighs chaffed, the less comfortable he would be riding the seven day journey back. How hard could loading up a cart be? _Thud._ Aiken rolled his eyes at the booming noise that echoed from the back. Apparently it was of the up most difficulty by the sound of it, one of the men or boys must have dropped a barrel or crate.

From his seat at the very front, Aiken could hear the men behind him begin to make a fuss, a low murmur of confusion making a wave through their ranks. Aiken blinked owlishly at the strange turn of events before scoffing at himself. If the men behind him had half their minds right, mayhaps the war with Wessex would be long over, alas they did not and it looked like Aiken would have to wait. Agitated and with his limited patience waning faster than a rock pool in summer, Aiken glowered at the young man that had tottered to the front, bold enough to grab onto the leather of Aiken's breeches to grab his attention, mouth opening to say something, words never to be spoken as a grating whistle broke through the air.

Before Aiken could blink, or really take in a breath, an arrow, long and partridge feathered, wedged itself through the young man's neck, blood squirting in a wide arch as the boy grew wide-eyed, a splatter of thick, crimson blood splattering across Aiken's own stunned face. Unfortunately, the man didn't let go of Aiken's breeches, on contrary, in his frantic panic, the man's grip grew tighter, even as he flailed and fell to the ground, subsequently taking Aiken down with him in a stunned silence, leaving no time for Aiken to brace himself for the fall, his head hitting off the rocky path discordantly.

The world swam around him, pulsing, flaring and dimming in a beat that eerily copied his heartbeat. The sound of the men shouting, whistling and bangs jarred Aiken's senses, the mud squelching underneath his hands and knees, slippery and cold, made it hard to stand and he felt something warm trickle down the side of his head, dripping off his chin. His ears rang, from the shouting itself blocking out all other noise, or the silence slowly but surely dousing each shout out, he didn't know but his heart picked up its pace between his lungs. Dazed, cold and hurt, scrambling to his knees, Aiken had barely made it to a squat before an arrow zoomed passed his own head, missing by nothing more than a lock of hair. Luckily for him, that was enough to jump him from his stupor.

"Shit!"

Clambering to a stand, Aiken wrenched his short sword free from his belt, the weight and feel of the pommel and handle foreign in his hands. The sword had been used for decoration before then, a warning to those who thought they could steal from the carts he road around, however, grimly, he realized he may have to use it for real this time. Limping around his neighing horse, his leg twisted and twinging in pain from the fall, Aiken made his way to the back of the cart to see what sort of ambush they were under and how many men they would face only to come up short once more.

The ten men who had been assigned to load the cart and see to his safe journey lay limp on the dewy floor, arrows protruding almost proudly from their bodies, feathered tips to the starry sky. No, not ten, nine. One last man was standing, dagger shaking in his lack grip, sword left fallen at his feet, likely due to the arrow that had pierced his other hand, forcing him to drop it. A hooded figure, an indistinguishable lump in the low lighting, stood on the back of the cart, wrapped head to toe in a fur rimmed cloak, cotton wrapped around their face, their green eyes and slip of skin between the two the only source of flesh on display.

Aiken, still stunned, could only watch as the man charged at the figure before they could knock another arrow onto their bow, the two grappling in a flurry of movement that was hard to keep track off, especially when the world still shrank and grew at stomach churning intervals like it did for Aiken. Although, he had a distinct impression the man had got a good shot in with his dagger, the sound of a cry, high-pitched, unmanly, yet terrifyingly like a war shout rang out. Regrettably, it was not enough to keep the archer down, not when the person drew another arrow free but instead of docking it on the bow, used it as a dagger themselves, catching the man unaware as they grabbed the back of his head and planted the tip home… Through his eye. Till his dying day, Aiken would never forget the pop of the eye, nor the death rattle of the man as he too fell to the floor, dead like the rest of them. Dead as he would be if he did nothing.

Aiken swallowed deeply as he stepped forth, his sword wavering, using both hands to balance the weight as best as he could, but he feared nothing would stop the trembling as the hooded figure turned to him, unhurriedly, as if they felt not an inch of the fear he did. They pulled an arrow free and place the cursed thing on their bow, raising it to meet Aiken's head. Their voice was gruff, a bark, an order.

"Leave."

Aiken's, against his own minds chant of fight, fight, fight, eyes travelled to the dead littered at his feet, than to his own shaking sword before falling back on the hooded figure. He was only meant to ride the cart, he was never meant to fight… He was no fighter. God's forgiveness, he had never drawn blood before, that was why the men were sent with him, to protect him and the goods. If they could not do that, what hope did he have? None. He wasn't a coward… He just wanted to live. Surely king Aelle would understand? Aiken, mind made up, went to go for the horse, his limbs jerky and uncoordinated in his rush, nearly tripping once or twice in his dash. However, before he could disappear from view, never taking his eyes from the hooded figure in fear of being shot in the back, the arrow on the bow was drawn back fully with a finality that spoke of his own blood spilling onto the floor. Once again they spoke in harsh, keen consonants, their words as final as the arrow he was staring down at.

"You're taking your life with you and you have a long journey ahead, you have no room to carry the food too. Now, leave."

Aiken didn't risk his life twice and made for the woods as fast as his limping and aching leg could take him. There was nothing he could do, the men were dead already, he was no fighter. At least, that is what he kept telling himself, his pride screaming in his mind, wailing at the blow it took by running away. His own voice as he shouted back was pathetic, weak and as rushed as his retreat.

"The king will demand your head for this!"

* * *

 **NEXT CHAPTER:** Marian is injured, we meet Friar Tuck, Alan-a-Dale and Will Scarlet. The sheriff and Guy of Gisbourne make their appearance and the birth of a legend takes place!

* * *

 **A.N:** I know for such a long wait between chapters, (Hopefully it won't happen again, I'm aiming to post at least one chapter a week!) most of you would likely be hoping for the Vikings to show face, but not just yet. I really want Marian to have strong foundations before she comes face to face with them, something that explains what she does and why she does it, the whole 'steal from the rich and give to the poor'. So, this chapter and the one next will be explaining that journey, how she becomes Robin hood and the consequences of that. As for incorporating the old lore and tales of Robin hood, they are actually kinda of light hearted, Vikings isn't, so I wanted to make the tale of Robin hood a bit more nitty-gritty, a bit more human instead of cartoonish feats of wonder. This way, it gels better to the plot of Vikings rather than a mish-mash of two very different feels and narratives. So, if the tale of Robin hood seems a bit more darker in this fic than you anticipated, it's purposefully done.

After next chapter, there will be a two year time skip, just to keep some mystery to Marian's past. However, I can say the chapter after next one, so **chapter Three** , the Vikings do come and they come in style! So, please bare with it, the dashing Vikings are on their way!

As for this chapter, this is really just set up for the action that comes next chapter, the reasoning that pushes Marian to do what she's doing as well as showing some of her moral dilemmas and unflinching need to see justice come. It also helps you guys get a feel of Marian before shit literally hits the fan. Things do pick up pace next chapter, even if the northmen aren't here right now. As for Marian blacking out when she gets too angry, the killing of a bear and subsequent wearing of that fur, fear not, this does have a reason that comes into play later on, it also gives her a bit of a tie to Viking culture (Most of you likely already know where I'm taking this XD), something that gives both sides a bit of a 'hold on, wait, is that what I think it is?' sort of moment.

I know most of you will want to skip these two chapters, this one and next, but I promise it's to give hints of what's coming and to set things up, in short, they are needed and not just fillers.

 **POLL:**

 **Ragnar/Marian** \- 23

 **Floki/Marian** -7

 **Athelstan/Marian** -2

 **Floki/Marian/Ragnar** -2

 **Ivar/Marian** \- 1

So, that is what Voting looks like so far, Ragnar's in the lead by a long shot. However, as I said, if you want a certain pairing, make sure to vote, all votes will be counted. P.M me them, leave them in a review, even send it by long ship or raven! (Okay, maybe not the last two, but make sure to vote.) As for voting, it closes a few days after next chapter, so a week and a halves time… **The 5th February** (Yes, I had to check my calendar for that date XD, math is not my strong point), so please make sure you've voted by then.

 **Last Word: Important, Please Read:**

As always, I wouldn't keep writing if it weren't for you lovely reviewers, you are the people who give reason to my madness, so a huge thank you to all of you. I would also like to thank everyone who favourited and followed, I hope you're all enjoying this so far and looking forward to the next chapter. The next chapter should be out next week, Thursday to be exact, I'm just getting over an illness, so hopefully I can carry on without any more delays, (I'm so sorry for the long wait between last chapter and this one).

If you have a spare moment, please leave a review, I love hearing of your thoughts and feelings about this fic. :)

Until next Thursday, keep being beautiful human beings!~ GoWithTheFlo20


	3. Honey Ale

Marian didn't remember much after the re-taking of the supplies the king's men had tried to steal away down Widow's road like the rats they were. She remembered stumbling to a near by tree after the last man had run away into the night like some vagabond, ghosting away on the words of her threat that still singed her tongue. She remembered her shoulder crashing into the harsh bark of the tree, the bite of frigid air to her skin as she swooped her cloak out of the way and saw the stab wound to her side, a lucky shot by dagger given by the last man she had downed, crimson blossoming on her starched shirt like a grotesque ink blot. In that moment, for some other-worldly or strange reason, she had truly thought the sight beautiful.

She remembered wandering through the forest, hand pressed into her side trying to stem the flow, fingers and wrist sticky from her own blood. For days, hours, seconds, she could not tell how long it was before she crashed to the floor, breath staggered, an airy sense of calm filling her up, brimming at the top of her very being when she thought this could quite possibly be it. She was going to die on the forest floor, alone, cold, but having done the right thing... She had done the right thing, hadn't she?

Pain had the odd habit of rendering time useless and unfathomable, but as she stared up at the sky through the breaks in sparse leaves and branches, from her sprawled position in the muck and broken twigs of the forest floor, she thought the sky had been blue, clear, endless and tranquil. She remembered, in that little capsule of missing time, what little John had told her all those years back, as If he was there with her, whispering in her ear, his words lulling her to an eternal sleep. _'He had died a good death little one. Quick, honourable and with soul. No man can ask much more from god than that.'_

Had Robin felt this way as he died? Had he look up to the vast blue sky, the very same she stared into, like she had and felt that calmness settle all worries and woes away? Perhaps, if he had, Marian found she suddenly agreed with little John there in the dirt while she had so vehemently disagreed in her candlelit house those years ago. It was a good way to die. A true and honest way to leave this world. She couldn't remember how long she laid on the forest floor, bleeding out, coming in and out of consciousness to be continually greeted with that blue sky that wiped away her fears like a mothers feathering kiss against forehead, but she did remember the far off shout of little John, disembodied, distorted, warbling through the air like a birds morning song, ushering in a new day.

"Marian! Where are you lass? Marian! Marian! Can you hear me? Marian!"

Yes, that had definitely been little John searching for her, but no matter how much she had begged her body to move, her legs to stand, her throat to shout, nothing came but those puffs of breath that grew further and further apart. Days, weeks, seconds later, all three for all that time mattered to Marian in that moment, little John came stumbling through the brush, the sound of more feet moving behind him, a gathering of men… A search party.

When he spotted her, she remembered him falling to her side, on his knees, with a great crash and thud. She remembered his large hands tugging her onto his lap, his wide hazel eyes as he saw the stab wound, the frantic muttering of words she could not distinguish filtering passed his lips. Was he speaking at all? Or was that her own thoughts muttering in her mind? A low hum of beats and spikes in air that could sound like words if you concentrated enough? Mother nature talking to you herself through the rustle and screech of trees dancing in the wind?

"Marian, what the hell have you done lass?"

Little John? Had he always been here or had he just arrived? She couldn't remember. She couldn't remember much at all. Was she dead, or for the first time in her short life, was she really alive? No… That didn't sound right, it didn't fit. For Marian, up was down and down was up but somehow, some way, it was comforting, this disorienting mess of sensory overload and snapping synapses. In a weird way, stuck between life and death, the world finally made sense.

"Have you ever seen the sky so blue John? I haven't. Perhaps, if we spent more time looking up, to the sky, nothing would seem so down, grim and dirty…"

Was that her voice, John's or god's? Did it matter whose voice it was when she agreed with the statement as whole-heartedly as she did? She didn't think so. However, that bubbling bliss of floating and transcendence finally popped when she felt little John's hand, meaty, fleshy fingers that ended in stubs of grubby, blunt finger nails dig and twist into the wound on her side. The flare of pain was indescribable, but it did do the job she had trouble doing herself. Pulling her back down to earth and the waking world in a violent tug that left her gut churning and gargling like a knocked over butter churn. Her own hands, nimble fingered and callused in places from years of bow-use, jerked up, grappling with little John's tunic's, eye's wide and voice overwrought when the memories crashed upon her mind like waves to a shore.

"They were taking the last of our food... The meadowsweet for the fever… I had to do something... John... John, you need to get the meadowsweet... The Widow's road…By the Brook… You need to take it back to Loxley..."

Little John scoffed and Marian winced as he shook his head at her ramblings. Didn't he see? The sooner the meadowsweet got back to Loxley, the more people there would be that survived the fever ravishing their village. In the grand scheme of things, Marian and her subsequent bleeding out on the floor mattered not. The people of Loxley mattered, the meadowsweet mattered, her death didn't fraction into that equation of importance. At least, not to herself.

"Not before I get you the help you surely and desperately need. You're not dying on my watch Marian. Men! Over Here-"

Marian snapped at him, cutting him off with bared teeth and pain-filled words that oozed the agony she felt blazing in her side. Her feet and legs felt numb, like phantoms, and that ghostly feeling was slowly creeping up to the rest of her with spindly vines of translucent death. She didn't have the time for this, neither did the people of Loxley and when push came to shove, the villagers would always come first, even in the light of her immanent death.

"No! Please, they can't know it was me, if the king finds out… Loxley will be punished for my mistakes... You know they will… John, you need to get the meadowsweet... Take it to Loxley... Use it... And hide it from the kings men... They will simply believe it was a robbery..."

The rush and foot-fall of little John's search party rang bright and clear through the woods, like little deep church bells ringing out for mass… Or her own death and the punishment Loxley would fall to if it was ever discovered it was her that had taken out the king's men, and in King Aelle's eyes, stolen from him. Oh, king Aelle, that proud, bloated lump of a man would not let that slide, not when his own ego and pride were at stake when it came out a young girl had gotten one over on him.

Little John's gaze locked with hers, both eyes resolute in their own decisions, the thudding of the men's boots growing louder the closer they got, Marian's own heart beat picking up pace with each new crunch and thud. Little John wouldn't risk Loxley for her, he just couldn't, and if he did he was not the man she had believed him to be. Thankfully, as if this was her dying wish, which it very likely could be, little John caved and swivelled around to shout over his shoulder, even more luckily, he was diverting the men's course before they could spot her and see the truth themselves.

"The Widow's road! There's some cargo there... Food and herbs for Loxley, go get it!"

The sound of the men shouting out their agreement and their retreating footsteps ushered a harsh cough from Marian, as well as her following dip and bow out of consciousness as she passed out in little John's arms. Little John, in turn, let loose a torrent of swears that would make even the most foul-mouthed fisher-man blush like a maiden caught with her skirts hiked.

"Shit, you never make anything easy do ya, lass?"

Of course, he got no answer but the sweet tweet of a bird upon high. Seeing Marian's chest rise and fall, as stilted as it was, gave little John that little shard of hope he needed to get him to leap into action. Wrangling her small form into his arms, squishing her to his barrelled chest as if he could physically hold her life in her body and keep it there, little John made into the woods, head darting left and right, mumbling to himself as he scrambled through the trees.

"Fuck... Loxley's too far... Let's hope the good friar's in."

That had been two months ago, now Marian had been sequestered away in a run down church that sat in the middle of Sherwood forest, a woods that connected to Loxley's own just off the eastern border by a narrow planked bridge over a small bubbling stream. The memories of that day had been foggy at best, a downright mess at worst with each passing day, but her healing and rest in the dusty, half dilapidated church was anything but. Little John would visit sometimes, when he wasn't in Loxley, helping banish the fever or answering curious village-folk about her whereabouts. Apparently, according to little John, she was on a pilgrimage, praying for the souls and quick healing of the village of Loxley in grand churches across Northumbria.

Marian had scoffed at that, sure the people of Loxley would see through it. Her… Praying? Anyone who knew her would call bullshit on that. Evidently, even after all she had done for the villagers, they did not know her and had lapped up that excuse like a hound parched of water. She didn't know whether to settle on being thankful the villagers had bought it and would not know any better, leading to king Aelle not knowing any better, or upset they did not know her like she knew them. Perhaps she could feel both and not have to secularize her own feelings. People, herself included, were complex things, maybe the most complex thing ever created.

Still, a bright star in the abyss that was her tiring, painful and extremely boring stay in the old, run down church as she healed and came back to full health had been the other occupant… The only other occupant if she was being truthful. She didn't know whether she liked the man so much because of who he was, or because he was the only other person around day in, day out for two very long and tedious months. He was a… Character. Yes, that would be the politest way she could describe him.

He went by the name of Friar Tuck, and god forbid you either shorten it to either Friar or Tuck, Marian had earned a clap up her ear for that one when she had slipped, she still remembered the ring in her eardrum from the sound hit. No, that wasn't a mistake she would make again. Friar Tuck was a tall man, six-foot at least, although his height was nothing compared to little John's own seven-foot one frame, but then again, no one would ever be as tall and grand as little John, his nickname only a ironic joke that shocked and beguiled new-comers when they finally met little John and saw he was anything but little.

However, where little John was thick with ropey muscle and barrelled chest, Friar Tuck was thick in a very different way. She swore, even as he waddled about in his sandals and monks cowl, a circlet of hair adorning his head, bald in the middle, she could quite comfortably and safely sit on his rounded, wobbling belly and not fall off, and she herself was neither short, standing at nearly five foot nine, a nearly unheard of height for a man, let alone a lady, and as thin as she used to be, her breast and hips seemingly soaking up all fat she ever ate and swelling pleasantly over night, her weight now would be nothing but that of a flies if Friar Tuck was to carry her. In short, Friar Tuck was a large man in all aspects.

Although, where little John had a gruff beard, scars from battles and wars, dirty, blood stained leathers and cotton, the Friar could be nothing but more different in this comparison. Clean shaven at all times, clean clothes, though the clothes had seen better days but had been lovingly stitched back together when the holes became too prominent, the biggest difference were their faces. Where little John would scowl with deep dark eyes that haunted and taunted, Friar Tuck's eyes were always owlishly big, wide and watery, slightly glazed as if his eyes were made from polished glass. Where little John would grin with all his teeth bared like a wolf, Friar Tucks smile was more lopsided, just a peek of teeth, wonky and easy going… Calming.

While little John was almost always grubby and had smears of dirt crossed and etched into his skin, Friar Tuck was nearly permanently red in the face, his nose and cheeks a blistering pink that stood out starkly against his pale skin, from the cold, the food he ate or some other reason Marian had not seen yet, she did not know but the redness always drew your eye. In the end, while they were both big men,eccentric, opinionated and larger than life, both couldn't be more opposite if they had tried to more worrying, especially for someone who did not make human connections and relationships as well as to be expected for someone her age, Marian found herself liking the Friar more and more she was in his presence, as he tenderly healed her wound and spoke softly about Sherwood forest, almost liking him as much as she did little John.

The reason she had never met him before, something that had bugged her incessantly, she had, after all, prided herself on knowing the villagers of Loxley was one simple factor. Friar Tuck was a complete hermit. He stayed in his abandon church, kept and tended to bee colonies out back that he would dither and worry over and would make food and drink from his own resources or what he could scavenge from Sherwood forest, water from the little stream, honey from the bee's, milk from a lone dairy goat he kept, who he had affectionately called Doris and food from the woods, only ever venturing into the market in Loxley when the need was dire and forced him to. Even then, he went so early in the morning and was back out of Loxley before many of the villagers were even awake, herself included.

Yet, despite all the oddness that surrounded the unique man, Marian would never forget he had accepted her into his home and hearth when little John had blundered in, her bleeding and limp in his arms, no questions asked as he led them to a room, a room he would later designate as hers, as he healed her. His idiosyncratic and unflinching ability to give without expecting anything in return, without wanting anything in return, was a breath of fresh air to Marian, mainly because Marian had grown used to dealing with the kings men, who took and took and took and it was… Nice? Warming? Filled her with hope to see someone out there who was so completely different to those damned men. Perhaps there was hope for Loxley, for the villagers, for herself if people like Friar Tuck lived.

Having had enough of wallowing in her own mind's musings, slumped on the small bed in nothing but a pair of loose breeches and a thin cotton shirt, her ribs and torso bandaged from the stab wound although it had long since stopped bleeding, Marian slipped her bare feet onto the cobbled flooring, hissing under her breath as the cold stone seeped into the soft skin of her toes and sole. It was in the middle of the night, well passed the time she should have gone to sleep, her dancing thoughts making that impossible, her lone candle that kept the room lit in a cosy orange fuzz had long since sizzled to nothing but a short, waxy stump on the bed side table, leaving the room to the hungry jaws of darkness.

It didn't take her long to find the door to the room in the darkness, pausing at the door to groan and idly rub at her side, the skin having knotted back together for some time now, still, when she stretched it still felt open and weeping, and proceeded to exit into the squat hallway and make her way down the tapering staircase to the main sanctity of the tilting husk of a church, most windows long gone, plants and vines invading through the brickwork and flooring, blooming and growing without restraint. She found Friar Tuck where she thought he would be, in the cavernous room in the very front of the church, broken pews lining each side, the room that would normally hold mass each morn and eve.

He, himself, was sat on one of the lesser broken pews at the very front of the room, an old alter enshrined at the farthest wall, a simple wooden cross, the only decoration, perched proudly front and centre. As Marian padded closer, hand still rubbing her side mindlessly, she could pick up the faint sound of mutterings, she also spotted his clasped hands over his shoulder as she peered and instead of interrupting his obvious prayers, decided to sit next to him, the broken bench groaning in protest of her added weight. Against her will, her gaze strayed to the cross, such a simple symbol, yet, miraculously, something that held so much power over so many. Power that people lied for, stole for, killed for… All for two pieces of wood struck together. Even if Marian was religious, she thought she could never understand how people could give such power to such an innocuous and innocent object. Friar Tuck's pleasant voice snapped her gaze away from the cross and to his reddened face.

"You should be resting in bed, Marian. It was only two full moons ago I held you bleeding in my arms."

Marian couldn't tamper the scoff that drifted from her lips. Weakness, in any form or shape, in the brutal life Marian led, could not be shown, not for a moment, even if it was to someone like Friar Tuck. It made her feel pathetic, low, useless. Here she was, squirrelled away in a church in Sherwood forest, eating, healing, drinking to her hearts content and the villagers back in Loxley were most likely baring the brunt force of the king's men alone, taking the punches, having their food, money and drink stolen from them. What right to peace did she have when her people did not have that same right? Brambly's swollen, blue and purple face flashed before her eye lids as she blinked, reminding her of why she did what she did and how utterly pointless she was hidden away here.

"It seems sleep does not help when it's ones soul that is tired Friar Tuck, and I'm afraid mine is thoroughly exhausted. "

How true that one sentence was. She had been stabbed, nearly died to retrieve the meadowsweet, what would happen next time Loxley needed something? What more could she give but her own life? She didn't regret her decision, not one bit, but next time, for there will be a next, there always was, Marian was lost on what price she would have to pay as for if the next time being as irrefutable as it was, so would be the price paid for that next time. It was a cycle, inescapable, one that had locked its tight, bony grip around Marian and refused to let go.

"Such old words for a young face to burden, but not a burden to carry alone. Remember that Marian. What the god takes, he gives back to us."

Just as his words had begun to give her strength, hope, something to cling onto, he had lost her at the mention of god. God, to Marian, was as greedy and duplicitous as the king's men. Another thing that took and gave back poison. He took her father and king Aelle had risen. He took her mother and Loxley was bombarded with taxes and crop strain. God took her sun-ray brother and gave her the responsibility of carrying the whole of Loxley on her thin, young shoulders. Marian knew, whatever god wanted to give her , she didn't want it, not if she went by his track record.

"Will he give me my brother back then? I thought not. Me and him… Me and god, we do not get along. I fear we never will."

She must have struck a cord in Friar Tuck, the bitterness laced in her voice echoing the same bitterness she had caught glimpses of that he felt too, only little shots of it , hidden in the creases of his face when he thought no one was looking, as he chuckled at her. What that bitterness was, what he had lived through to end up here, what he had seen or done to find himself safer or better to become the hermit he was, she didn't know, but it had left him almost as bitter and twisted as she was, if not for his copious amounts of optimism and his reliance on the god Marian felt only distaste for. To each his own she supposed. Nevertheless, Marian would choose neurotic and pessimism over optimism and outlandish claims of 'god will fix all' any day of the week. At least, this way, she felt like she was the one living in the real world.

"No, I don't suppose you would like to think you and god would get along, but the fact remains the same, god has given you a new life. A token, I am sure, for the many lives you have saved by taking back the meadowsweet from the king's men."

Marian grew dim at the reminder of that day, the reminder of exactly what she had done, what lengths she would go to for the villagers, for her friends and family, for that was what Loxley was, her family. She would kill for her family… She had killed for her family. As if feeling her own distress roll of her in waves, Friar Tuck looked upon her with kind eyes, sympathetic, pitying. It was sickening. He shouldn't pity her, he should pity the families of the men she had slayed. Their wives… Their mothers… Their fathers… Their brothers… Their sisters… Sisters like her who would weep and scream and rage like she had when she had learned of Robin's death. She, in the end, was no better than the man who had skewered her brother with a broad sword. Nauseousness ate away at her from the inside out upon this revelation.

"I... I killed men that day. I would not think god, if he does exist, would reward me for that. Isn't that what the bible says? Turn the other cheek? I don't think your holy book has anything about putting arrows through cheeks, eyes or throats, and if it does, I am sure it is not in a favourable light."

Friar Tuck chuckled once more, this one warmer, more lively. It took the self deprecation bite right out of her train of thought.

"I have been a man of the lord since I was a small lad and I'm afraid even I can not predict what god does or doesn't want, only guess. However, they are dead and you are here, breathing against all odds. The reasoning of your actions were just, your heart in the right place. You may not believe in the lord, but to me? That means something, you being here, conversing with me this very evening, it must mean something. However, that something is where the guess work comes into play."

Friar Tuck drew deep within himself again, misty eyes trained and locked on the cross. However, after a long boat of silence that Marian found she could not break, her lips seemingly sown shut, her body frozen solid to the pew, despite how she wanted to break that silence and stamp on its remains, Friar Tuck gave an almighty slap to his knees and stood in a swish of his monk cowl , reached beside his seat of the bench and pulled out a couple of frothing wooden tankards, handing one of the beverages to a comically wide eyed Marian. With caution, as if waiting for the Friar to all of a sudden sprout wings and a snout and fly off through the broken ceiling, wings that remaindered her of the bees he kept, she took the drink and stared at its amber fluid, glancing between him and the brimming tankard.

"Now, how about some ale? Made by your's truly, from the finest honey Loxley has to offer. Go on now, take a big chug!"

With a quick sniff, the assault of smells, barley, honey and hops, warmed her up from the inside, cosy and pleasant smells to be sure that reminded her of a lit hearth and a fur blanket. Marian glanced up at the Friar, already seeing him downing his own drink in one swift go. Throwing caution to the wind, Marian shrugged her shoulders, wincing at the slight tinge of pain at her side, lifted the tankard to her lips and took a sizeable gulp… Only to start spluttering, thumping her chest with a closed fist as her face became red.

"Ach, that's strong! What in god's name have you put in it? That could quite possibly knock little John on his arse, and that's saying something!"

Friar Tuck let loose a rock-shaking, bone-rattling, ceiling crashing, wobbly bellied laugh. Marian, who was still having trouble from catching her breath and calming the trail of fire the drink had left behind to the pit of her gut, did not find the whole ordeal humorous. When he caught wind of her glare aimed at his skull, Friar Tuck's grin only grew wider, a finger coming up to point at his red cheeks and nose.

"What? You do not think my face is permanently red from the cold do you? No. Strong ale makes strong men… Or woman in your peculiar case! I've always like that word, peculiar. It just rolls off the tongue doesn't it? Pe-Cu-Li-Ar."

Marian, against all the odds, all the worries, the strain, the pain, the loss and anguish, found herself laughing truly for the first time since Robins death. That was Friar Tuck's strength, his charm and wit, his ability to be a bright light in the darkest of moments. However, now she knew why his cheeks and nose were always red, and perhaps why he was always so optimistic…

"You're drunk! You are always drunk!"

Friar Tuck winked at her and for that one moment, all was right in the world.

* * *

 **NEXT CHAPTER: Alan-A-Dale comes into town, an evil bishop, wedding crashing and the start of the merry men.**

* * *

 **A.N:** I know this is late, and only a tiny bit of what I promised for this chapter, partially because I'm still ill, but all together without making the chapter monstrously long (I'm talking 50,000 words here) I just couldn't get through all the characters, keep the plot interesting and at the same time, give flavour and life to each Robin Hood character without having to split it up. So, I decided to give a chapter to each character. It also gives you lovely readers time to digest and understand each character and how they come to be part of the merry men (Robin Hood's group of criminals for the ones who don't know anything of the tale.)

On the down side, this means there will be seven more chapters (Maybe just four if I decide to join a few together) until the Vikings show up. But hold on! Wait! Don't throw the rotten fruit or veg yet! The chapters, because I feel more comfortable writing them this way instead of one large blob of endless words and cardboard cut outs of the characters I actually want in my story, and instead of dreading writing (Which slows the process astronomically) I should be shedding them out faster, meaning two updates a week, or more. The chapters may be shorter than normal (Normal for me, the endless rambler) But, that is how I like it, little snap shots of life before the Vikings turn up, something to give you a feel of Marian and the people who have large parts in the plot, but not give everything away. However, once the Vikings come into it, trust me, the chapters do get longer.

Why do I want to make the merry men so important? Simple, these are Marian's friends, her family, the reason she does what she does. It would be like having Ragnar without any Vikings, Floki, Helga, Rollo, Lagertha, Siggy, Torstein, gone, just Ragnar and that wouldn't be a story. Plus, without giving way to spoilers, when the Vikings do arrive, some of the merry men are in danger and Marian does something that would not make a lick of sense as to why she would do it without fleshing out the merry men first, because it falls onto one of the merry men's back stories I have conjured up (Much the miller's son).

So, please, bare with me, the Vikings will be here before you know it! Promise!

As I've said, writing for me is relaxing, it's a hobby I so heartedly enjoy and this way I enjoy it instead of dreading sitting at my laptop to type away on something I'm just not feeling the soul of. And while I hope (Really do hope) you guys enjoy my works, I want to enjoy writing them too. Trust me, we'll both benefit from it. Writing is better when you put heart to it!

 **VOTING:**

 **Ragnar/Marian/Floki- 23**

 **Ragnar/Marian- 21**

 **Floki/Marian- 11**

 **Ivar/Marian- 3**

 **Athelstan/Marian- 3**

 **Bjorn/Marian- 1**

 **Ragnar/Marian/Floki Wins!** This fic is now officially a Ragnar/Marian/Floki fic, are you guys as excited as I am about this? This is going to be so much fun to write. I'm already doodling ideas and conversations down for when they finally meet!

As always, THANK YOU SO MUCH to all the lovely reviewers, this chapter is for you! May you all find a drunken friar to get wasted with at least once in your life! Thank you to all those who favourited and followed, I hope you're enjoying the ride!

As always, please leave a review in this poor fanfic authors upturned hat, it will get me typing faster ;) Until next time, stay beautiful!~ _GoWithTheFlo20_


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